Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/414

328 a fissure also exists in the earth, which Signor Jachetti affirms when first opened extended into the rock beneath, but that the rains have since filled the latter in. I have much doubt of the fact, however, from his description of the appearance of the rock at the alleged fissure, which rather seems to have been an ill-defined junction of bedding at a steep angle, and that the outer bed of rock had slipped a little downward and outwards, over and from that on which it reposed. The earth fissure, however, was traceable for several hundred yards beyond the saddleback of a colline, connecting the spur of Atena with the main range of lower hills behind. It appeared originally to have been about 2 or 2$1⁄2$ inches wide, and one side had descended about 3 inches below its original position. It was in earth over the limestone, varying from 2 to 4 feet in depth—a manifest case, like that in the plain, of slippage and shaking off of loose material, and not of actual fracture by bending or dislocation (Fig. 193).



A second small gorge, with deep and precipitous sides, runs in an east and west direction behind Atena, and falls